


Obvious

by katesfolly



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Gen, M/M, Trans Character, Trans Male Character, being outed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-23
Updated: 2014-01-23
Packaged: 2018-01-09 19:34:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,522
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1149959
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/katesfolly/pseuds/katesfolly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John accidentally discovers something about Sherlock's past, says the wrong thing, and wishes he hadn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obvious

John’s hands are frantic over Sherlock’s torso, ripping into his shirt, stripping the cloth away as fast as he can. “Who does this shit? Who throws actual, literal vitriol?” John spits as he reveals pale skin already turning an angry red. Sherlock doesn’t fight him, but also isn’t really helping; that blow to the head left him dazed and disoriented. John’s palms start to burn where he’s touched the acid-soaked cloth. Sherlock’s head lolls, but John’s afraid to touch it, afraid he’ll spread whatever-it-is to Sherlock’s beautiful face and hair. “Jesus,” John hears himself say, “God help us,” he doesn’t know what it is, if it’s hydrofluoric and it’s worming its way down to corrode the bird-like bones of Sherlock’s ribcage as they speak. John kneels over him, hands to the side, and says quiet comforting things when Sherlock groans deep in his chest. John can’t touch to reassure, knows he shouldn’t, now that he’s got the clothes off, but the urge to comfort is nearly overwhelming. “Sherlock, you’re all right, we’re all right. Open your eyes.” The tightness in John’s chest squeezes a degree tighter, as it always does in these sorts of moments, because he wants to be able to say, luv, sweetheart, darling, he wants Sherlock to be his, and the more frightened he is, the more John feels that last separation between them, the last way in which they are not us. 

Instead of moving toward the man who is not his lover, John looks down at the reddening torso. He sees thin scars standing out against the creamy pale skin. They’re mostly random, but two are matching, old scars faded to white crescents under each nipple. John’s gaze drops to the too-flared tip of an iliac crest rising out of now-tattered trousers, and it all slots together in his mind. Sherlock’s standoffishness, Mycroft’s protectiveness. The strange contradiction of Sherlock’s strong investment in his own clothes and image with his otherwise absolutely task-oriented approach to life. John’s gaze whips up to Sherlock’s face, where John’s being watched with still-foggy eyes. John can feel his jaw drop, and tells himself later that his shock might partially excuse the fact that when it does, what falls out is: “Sherlock. You’re a woman.”

Sherlock’s eyes close, and his face turns away.

“No, I mean. Jesus. You’re not. Obviously.” 

Sherlock’s head turns back, and it must hurt, because Sherlock’s whole face is a passive mask. John keeps his hands held out, a gesture of peace, supplication, helplessness.

“I don’t think you get to decide who I am.” Sherlock’s voice is cold as winter. It shouldn’t be regal, coming as it does from a man who’s flat on his back and half out of his head. The door whacks open and paramedics spill in, and suddenly it’s very bright, and very loud, and John’s using his calm-doctor voice to bully his way onto the transport with Sherlock, when they want to take him separately. They can’t be separated, especially in the middle of something John desperately needs to apologize for.

Suddenly John thinks he understands Sherlock’s vocal and vehement objections to medical treatment of any kind, and in fact to letting people close to him at all, physically or otherwise. John’s always been rather the exception in that regard; Sherlock has welcomed him into his life since the beginning. But he’s never been forthcoming about his past. 

John’s stomach roils at the thought that he may have ruined the slow-growing, precious trust between them with a few thoughtless words. He tries to think back to his medical training and can’t come up with a single thing that specifically addressed any kind of gender variance, other than including the word “trans” in some giant acronym; he’s always figured, based on Harry’s input, that he’d do all right if he treated everyone like people, then asked them what they needed, but he also never imagined being in love with a person who apparently had a past as a different sort of person, or finding out accidentally, and feeling everything he knew shift under him. 

In the past month, Sherlock has begun to sidle up to John occasionally, like a sneaky cat who steals affection rather than inviting it, ready to run at the least hint of reciprocal interest. John keeps his eyes on Sherlock’s face, in case he wakes again despite the sedative they’ve given him, and thinks about each time. Sherlock’s hand barely lighting on his forearm, silencing him as they talked with a client. Sherlock standing next to John as he cooked breakfast, his presence in the kitchen strangely intimate; Sherlock sitting on the floor to the left of John’s legs while they watched telly, rolled into a ball with the nubs of vertebra showing above the neck of his t-shirt. Sherlock flitting into John’s room while John changed the sheets, snatching a jumper off his chair, and pulling it over his t-shirt without a word, without a single complaint about its dowdiness, or about the hand’s breadth of t-shirt showing at the hem. 

There’s a frantic hour following their arrival at A & E, full of discussion and medical detail, then Sherlock’s in a room and John’s released to sit at his side. It’s silent except for the whirr of hospital computers and the gentle sussurus of Sherlock’s drugged breathing. 

By the time Sherlock wakes, John has had plenty of time to think, but it’s still a surprise. Sherlock’s eyelids and fingertips shift restlessly for a moment before he wrestles his eyes open. He breathes out on a papery exhale that tries to turn to coughing, but John is there with water and a straw.

“Not a concussion, just a bad headache. And they’ve treated the chemical burns, they should heal just fine.” John flicks his eyes down to where Sherlock’s neck and upper chest are covered with wet dressings. Sherlock closes his eyes and turns away. John wants to take his hand, but his own thoughtless words have more effectively prevented that than anyone else could have done.

“I’m sorry,” John says. “There’s nothing else I can say, I was surprised, and I’m sorry, and it won’t happen again.” He listens to the whirring of the ventilation for a little while. Sherlock is absolutely still, but he has the tension of awareness. “I won’t—I won’t mention it again. But I’m staying, unless you want me to go. They’ll keep you overnight for observation.”

“Go.”

John bites his lip, hard. He goes.

At Baker Street, he tidies. God knows the flat needs it, with two cases in rapid succession. He prepares all the vegetables for a hearty stew he’ll put on in the morning, for if Sherlock comes home. When Sherlock comes home. He tries to ignore the heavy feeling in the bottom of his lungs, where he’s disappointed Sherlock, and himself. He tries to ignore his curiosity, about how this Sherlock came to be, about who Sherlock was, before. He really, really tries to ignore his curiosity about what a relationship with Sherlock would be like, but that was impossible before, and it hasn’t gotten easier.

He doesn’t sleep much.

John breaks down and texts Sherlock at eight the next morning. He’d left Sherlock’s mobile on the nightstand, so unless it’s run out of battery, he should receive it.

_Want me to come break you out?_

It feels strange, initiating texting with Sherlock. Usually he’s on the receiving end, "Dried toothpaste not flammable," or, “Pick up 5 pounds herring,” or just, “Bored.”

_Done.  
-SH_

John fiddles with his phone for a full five minutes, pushing buttons and turning it over different ways, before he texts back:

_Coming home?_

There’s no reply, but that isn’t unusual, John tells himself. Then he starts calculating how long it could take Sherlock to get to Baker Street. He opens a draft for a blog entry and makes it three whole sentences about their last case before he’s back to thinking alternately about the way all that pale, warm skin had looked and the way he’d opened his big mouth and said exactly the wrong thing.

After another endless half hour, Sherlock comes up the stairs. John doesn’t even pretend he’s been doing something productive. “All right?” he manages a little half-smile.

“Mmm.” Sherlock untwists his scarf, revealing the dressings on his neck, and hangs his rain-damp overcoat. Then his laser-focus lights on John. “You have questions.”

John nods cautiously and half-turns in his chair so he can see Sherlock better. 

“Ask.” Sherlock’s elbows hit the chair arms, his fingers steeple in front of his face, just as John has seen him thousands of times. It’s the position he takes when he’s focused, but John thinks he mostly looks tired today.

“Are we OK?” Sherlock’s eyes open, then narrow. Clearly this was not the question he’d expected. 

He looks at John for a long, silent moment, then he nods. The heavy, sick feeling in John’s abdomen settles a little.

Baker Street is silent, except for the low babble of Mrs. Hudson's telly.

“Is that all?” Impatience heats Sherlock’s pale eyes.

“No,” John says, “Thai, or curry?”


End file.
